A ROMAN MARBLE SARCOPHAGUS FRAGMENT

This fragment preserves a goddess, wearing a short tunic and a mantle over her shoulders, striding to the right towards a boar, whose head is preserved along the right edge. She holds a bow in her raised left hand and another object in her right against her breast. According to C.C. Vermeule (op. cit.), “This lady is either Atalanta in the scene of Meleager’s hunt of the Calydonian boar or the goddess Artemis in the semi-divine hunting expedition of a Roman general.” For a similar figure on a Meleagar sarcophagus, see the one formerly in the Mattei Colleciton, Rome, p. 298, no. 3 in S. Reinach, Répertoire de reliefs grecs et romains, vol. III.